# Episode 210: The Story Behind MindStrong

An episode of [Becoming MindStrong](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1505918838), 9 Oct 2026, 59 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/977851/episodes/19956557-episode-210-the-story-behind-mindstrong.mp3

Ever wondered how MindStrong began and the experiences that shaped me as a coach and entrepreneur? In this candid conversation with Leila, I share my personal journey, the challenges of building a business, and the mindset shifts that continue to guide my life and work. Book your Free Strategy Session here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

## Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 210: The Story Behind MindStrong
Speaker 1 0:00
Hi everybody! Welcome to our weekly lunch and learn. Oh, someone pointed out to me that I changed my Zoom settings the other day, and it messed me up. So here we are. Leila and I were just laughing behind the scenes because today is an extra special lunch and learn where Leila is going to be interviewing me, and so she asked, "Are you still going to introduce the lunch and learn? I said, "Yeah, I'll say presenting a very special guest. So let me back up. If this is your first lunch and learn, welcome. My name is Rachel. I'm the founder and CEO of Mindstrong. We call it's not your first lunch and learn. Welcome back. We call Wednesdays our Ignite Family Day because this is where we get together as a group. The more you can join us live, the more fun it is. Get to ask Q and A's and see everyone's beautiful faces, feel their energy. And if you can't join us live. We know we will not always be able to accommodate time zones, so we always record these, put them in your Ignite portal, and send them out after the fact. So every once in a while, in a lunch and learn, we tend to bring in a lot of special guests, and every once in a while, I'll interview one of our coaches just so you can hear their own backstory behind the scenes, and it was brought up a few weeks ago. Actually, Leila, I don't know if this was your idea or Swomo. It was
Speaker 2 1:26
my idea. Was it your idea? Yes.
Speaker 1 1:28
So Leela had the the wonderful idea. She was like, "What if we interviewed you? Because you guys only get to hear as much of my backstory as I choose to share, right, on my podcast and my book, but Leila gets to put me in the hot seat and ask me whatever whatever she wants. For those who don't know, Leela is not only one of our head coaches; she's also my best friend. So it makes this extra fun because she knows the good, the bad, and the ugly. So we'll we'll do a little Rachel in the hot seat Q and A for about 4045 minutes, and then we'll make sure to save some time at the end for an open Q and A for anything that Leila didn't ask me. Oh, I'm nervous. Okay, I
Speaker 2 2:15
know you should be. You should be. I have my script here, but you never know. I could just go off script. We could go off.
Speaker 1 2:21
I mean, I I don't know what's happening. So I'm in your in your hands. I'm putty right now. Let me put this so it's it's us. Okay, lay it on.
Speaker 2 2:30
Yeah, I love this because of course Rachel and I were friends, and I heard a lot about Mindstrong before I decided to start working with Mindstrong, and so I know I've heard a lot of stuff, but a lot of you probably haven't heard some of this, and so I thought it would be fun to bring this to the group and ask some of these questions. So, so the first ones should be easy, hopefully. But you talk a lot about developing Mindstrong while you were teaching, and so I just wanted to hear more about the story about how you developed Mindstrong during that time period.
Speaker 1 3:09
Yeah. Okay. So my background: I was a middle school teacher, and back in those days, I was a vegetarian. I'm not a vegetarian anymore, and I thought I was super healthy. I was actually a runner, which is crazy. If you know me, like you know how much I hate cardio, and I was a runner back then, so under eating, zero protein virtually, and cardio out the wazoo had never really lifted a weight in my life, and I had a friend at the time who was super into the gym, and I'm not. People are always shocked by how short I am. I'm only five four. I had a friend who was like five two. Like she was tiny. Are you saying I'm exaggerating? I'm five three and a half. Okay, five three and a half. This this friend, she was she was tiny. She was like five two, and she was a beast in the gym. This girl was so strong. So one day she was like, "Why don't you come to the gym with me? So I went to the gym, and my competitive side came out. I was so annoyed that this girl was so much smaller than me and so much stronger than me, which makes no sense because she'd been training for years and years. I'd never picked up a weight before, but that was it. It was like the fire was lit under my butt, and I'm like, I am going to get stronger. So I became pretty obsessed. I started going to the gym regularly with her. I was trying to beat her in weights all the time, which was a terrible idea because I was injured all the time because I was ego lifting. But my body wasn't changing because I knew nothing about nutrition, and this friend, God bless her soul, was not a coach. So all she would tell me is like, "Yeah, you got to eat more. You got to eat. Like I don't know what that means. Like we'd go for burgers afterwards. I don't know. You know, at that point, I'd stop being a vegetarian. So anyway, I was working my butt off. My body was not changing, and I was like, "All right, like I'm a teacher." I could probably do some research and and not rely on this friend who's not a coach. And the more I
Speaker 1 6:41
And in three, four times to the gym, their body was not changing significantly yet, but the way they felt was like a switch flicked on, and I started to hear things like, "You know what's so crazy, Rachel? For 20 years, I've avoided mirrors, and this morning, I kind of like looked at my butt in the mirror and felt good. Or a big one I heard is like if my husband would walk by and put his arm around me, I would tense up. And this morning I was actually like being a little flirty, and I didn't I didn't shy away. And there was a part of my brain that's like, oh my gosh, like selfishly, this is what I want to do. I want to teach women to get that spark back. That's where ignite came from. So it started as a little side gig. I started doing personal training after after school. I knew very quickly in person personal training was not what I was put on this earth to do. Like it just when I did the math, the math wasn't mathing. It's like okay, if if I have four hours after school, which took me to like midnight, I can help four people. That's not what I want to be doing. So I will avoid going down a deep rabbit hole here because it's a much longer story. But it's one of my favorite lessons in following your intuition because this was pre-COVID. Online nutrition was not really a thing. There were a handful of people doing it, not many, and I was like, "This is what I'm going to do. In my soul of souls, MindStrong is meant to be an online company, and I cannot tell you how many people, including my own mother, were like, "Are you sure you should be doing this? Like online? What is online coaching? Shouldn't you keep training in person? And I was like, "No, like I-that's not what this is. And fast forward, COVID hit. Every personal trainer was trying to figure out how to get online. I already had a brand online, and we grew like 650% the first year of COVID. So the other part to the story, I will add behind the scenes. This is a very long-winded answer, but this is one I have
Speaker 2 10:03
Yeah, I think I love that you bring that up because sometimes as a coach, people have sometimes will say like kind of indirectly like, but what does Rachel know? Because she was basically born with muscles, you know. And so I guess it turns out you weren't born with muscles, but maybe that'd be cute
Speaker 1 10:20
though, little baby. I know, I know.
Speaker 2 10:22
But maybe you could talk more about that, like you know how you specifically mentioned it. It's simple, but then the act of doing it and developing that habit can be challenging, right? That's why most of us are here. So maybe you could talk about how you developed that habit and how maybe you know you continue to to develop new habits.
Speaker 1 10:47
Yeah, yeah. A lot of a lot of Mindstrong is based off two things. One, most people here know or will learn. I am a huge psychology neuroscience nerd. Like that is my favorite thing to study, to learn about, to take courses on, to read books about, and with that, these two things go hand in hand. My own personal life, because you can't study and read something, and well, I guess you could not implement it. But I implement a lot of that into my personal life. So when we talk a lot here about baby steps, momentum, getting a snowball rolling down a hill, that is literally how I live my life. I don't care if we're talking about health and fitness, nutrition, or learning a totally new hobby. I there's there's a podcast episode I have called the Jason Method, and I named it after my brother because we were raised in the same household and we share a brain, and the household we were raised in was all or nothing. Like you go all in, you are the best at what you do, or you don't even start. That that is David Fryman to a T, and that can help you in a lot of ways, and it can also hold you back in a lot of ways because that leads to burnout. That leads to we just talked about this for our alumni in mastery. We just talked about perfectionism, right? If I can't master this thing, that's my self identity. Who am I? So I say all that to say that I grew up in a household of zero to 100 perfectionism all in, and that fights against everything psychology will tell you about being pleasure seeking creatures. So now, what I talk about in that Jason Method podcast is it's almost like you're teasing yourself. Like if I want to do an hour on this thing, I'll only let myself do 15 minutes, and that's really annoying. Like I will be like Rachel, like I'm arguing with myself, but it's so that the next day, instead of feeling like, oh, I just did an hour of this task yesterday, I have to do another hour. It's like, oh my gosh, get me back to this task because I cut myself off early yesterday,
Speaker 1 14:15
They work on teams, they work in managing people, and they work on ourselves. Where it's like, here, you want this thing? Okay, I moved it a little bit. Come chase the carrot. That's how our brains work. So any time I'm learning a skill, Lila, to to answer more succinctly, I'm using everything that we're learning here about baby steps, momentum, getting a snowball rolling down a hill, and just letting this become an organic process.
Speaker 2 14:41
So are there any new habits that you've developed recently?
Speaker 1 14:45
Oh, that's a good question. Work, work has been my no, not at the moment. I will say, within work, we've been making some. Some people know this, some people don't. There's a guy, Alex Hermosy. He's huge. In the business world, and we've been very fortunate that we're working directly with his team. So, as much as I'm a big believer in work-life balance and making sure that life is not all work in this moment of massive growth with Hermosie's team, it has been very work-focused right now, and it does give me a place to develop new skills within work because there's elements of Mindstrong that we're currently adding that we're currently improving, and that pushes my own depth of knowledge. I'm actually going to retract what I said. 2026 has been the year of social media. I've never been very active on Instagram, and that's a whole different beast. Oh my goodness! I have never dove into that world before. So I would say that has been a skill because it is a skill. I didn't realize that. I thought it was like you go on camera and you yap a little bit, and I say the same things I've talked about for 10 years, and you blow up on Instagram. That's not how it works. So I would say the skill of social media is the skill that I've been working on under the umbrella of of work.
Speaker 2 16:06
Yeah, I
Speaker 1 16:06
don't know if that's an exciting skill, but it's been no.
Speaker 2 16:08
But I would actually kind of disagree with you because, like, I do see that you've developed a lot of your because you have the skill of understanding how habits work. You've definitely carved out time in your day to like chip away at things that have been new, and so I've seen you do a variety of things. I won't name them all here, but I've seen you do a variety of things that you're like, oh, I'm doing this now, and I'm doing it regularly, and you know, it's just the same approach that you've talked about. It's sort of like making sure you're making a little bit of progress each day in in creating that habit,
Speaker 1 16:43
yeah. And I think that's a good point. What you just said about carving out time on the topic of how I develop habits. So one of Hermosie's big things for our team is was content creation. He's like, whatever you're doing right now, 100 exit. I was like, I do not have the hours in a day to 100 exit, so we're gonna find it. So that we talked about this in a past lunch and learn about how to prioritize. But that's been my non-negotiable: is that I have a two to two and a half hour block every single morning. My phone's on do not disturb. Swomo knows I am unreachable. The team knows I'm unreachable, and I just create content for that two to two hour block or two and two to two and a half hour block every single day. I do not. Nobody gets to schedule a meeting like it is that non negotiable time that we spoke about in that pod in that lunch and learn.
Speaker 2 17:30
So on that note, top take us through a typical day of running Mindstrong.
Speaker 1 17:37
Oh, typical day. Okay. Actually, this morning I changed my wake-up time. That felt like a very big deal. I woke up at four or five a.m. this morning, Lila.
Speaker 2 17:48
Oh my gosh, I don't even believe
Speaker 1 17:50
it. I when Leila met me, I was like an eight a.m. wake up kind of gal. Those days are those days are gone.
Speaker 2 17:56
Now you're waking up before me, and it's weird. I
Speaker 1 17:59
know. I was up at 450 this morning. In the past, I would have said my alarm clock doesn't go that early, but it does. Oh, can I tell you? This is totally off topic, but this has been a game changer. I bought this bracelet. It's what hearing impaired people use to wake up. If you get up earlier than your partner, this thing has changed the game. It's a bracelet that vibrates. So with my new early work schedule, I get up about an hour before Swomo, and that's she's the lightest sleeper in the world. So that was a big pain in the butt. So now I've got my little vibrating bracelet, so I can wake up at 450, and she doesn't even know that the surprise
Speaker 2 18:39
she can't hear that. Actually, I know
Speaker 1 18:41
without like it. Okay, so typical day. So now I get up at 450. As of today, it was five. If you asked me yesterday, now we're at 450. I have my little morning routine. So I talk very openly that breakfast is fantastic for you. Our cortisol tends to be highest in the morning, which is why breakfast is so great. And I do not practice what I preach here. I do not always eat breakfast. What I do have is my little morning routine. So I get up. We have a infrared sauna in our house worth every penny. Highly recommend. I go in the sauna and meditate for 10 minutes. That's my alone, quiet time. Almost sleeping. The puppies are sleeping. The world is silent. So I get 10 minutes uninterrupted in the sauna. Drink my my water. Hydrate. Get ready. Take the puppies for a little walk. I'm skipping the whole part where I have to like bribe them to get out of bed with treats. That's all. That's a whole thing. This morning, one of them actually growled at me. Didn't want to get up. That that's a whole part of the morning. I am in so our apartment.
Speaker 2 19:45
I need a vibrating bracelet. I need for
Speaker 1 19:47
puppies. How cute would that be? I could just see them like eating it though. But cute in theory. So the place that I'm in right now, our apartment is right next door. This is the next door place we rent as a puppy. Podcast Studio. So I come over here about six 630, make my coffee, dive into content creation. Real quickly, if you are loving my content, I want to invite you to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team. On your session, we'll talk about where you are, where you want to be, a game plan to bridge that gap and see if one-to-one coaching is a fit. You can use the link below to access the two-minute application, and we'll see you on your session. So from about 630 to nine, sometimes a little bit more. Everything's on Do Not Disturb. Record podcast, YouTube, Instagram, anything for the for Ignite that we're adding in, it's just straight up recording. Then we have a meeting with our enrollment team, so we have a daily meeting with them. From there, dive into the workday, which means 10,000 slacks going off at the same time. Whatever projects we're working in, we have meetings with the coaches, meetings with Annar COO, meetings with it's a lot of meetings. It's a lot of meetings. Then the end of the day, somewhere in there, I try to eat lunch. I've started using that meal prep company, so I'm actually eating lunch now. And then end of the day, I block for call reviews. So I go over the enrollment team is meeting with new people, so we review the calls. Anything we need to work on, etc. I try to be religious. That come hell or high water, I am done by 6p.m. so that I can get my booty to the gym and actually spend some time with Swomo. I learned that one the hard way because post termosy, I did not have a cap on the end of my day, and it was turning into 1516-hour, days, which was not healthy for anyone. So now I literally have it blocked in my calendar. It says dinner with Boo, which means it's either dinner or gym or
Speaker 2 22:48
Yeah, that is something that I agree. I'm also like I kind of resisted that organization being that organized. It felt very locked in, but what I realized is that when you don't have it scheduled or partitioned out, you're kind of holding it around in your working memory of like, oh, I gotta get to that, and that just sort of is a stressor to hang on to that. And then from my, you know, developmental work, that's something that declines as we age. Your capacity to hold stuff in your working memory is what becomes less and less. So as you notice, like you know, you could be trying to think of one thing, and then you think of some other thought, and then first that other thought just popped out of your head, and you don't even know what it was. You know, classic like, oh, I'm in the kitchen. What what did I come here for? Because now I'm distracted by this other thing. So the more that we can use those strategies to help ourselves out and take it out of our to-do list and our mental to-do list. The better that will will feel as well.
Speaker 1 23:48
And I also think not having it blocked makes it open to negotiation, right? If I don't block my calendar, it will fill with other things, which a lot of those things are important. And these are my capital M musts. So by having it blocked, Swomo, who books my meetings for me, knows like do do not move these things. These are non-negotiables. Anything that needs to be attended to this week is going to go in between those things. So I think it's a great way. We're not going to have 20 things a day, but it's a great way that kind of forces our hand to prioritize what are the two to four non-negotiables each day, and then everything else gets filled in around that.
Speaker 2 24:27
Yeah. So, what are some of the like? I would say, like, what's your biggest lesson that you've learned from starting and building Mindstrong?
Speaker 1 24:36
Whew, that could be book number two. I'm going to give two.
Speaker 2 24:43
Okay,
Speaker 1 24:44
number one is what I referenced earlier about trusting your gut, and it's such an easy thing to say, and it is such a challenging thing to do. Every I could not name one person in my life, and I say this with all the love in the world for people in my life, and I didn't know. You, Stephanie, or Swomo back then-that's the caveat. But I didn't have a single person in my life that many years ago who were like 100% You should do this online fitness thing. Every single person in my life was like, "What is that? Right? Everyone told me you should have a safety net. Shouldn't you do in-person training? When I skipped over this part of the story, but when I was a teacher, I was living in California, and teachers actually made decent money. I was making six figures as a teacher, and when I decided to go all in on Mindstrong, Mindstrong was not making any. I did not make enough to support me, and there was a day where I was like, "Okay, I have two options. I can keep like trickling this thing down and hope that 10 years from now it turns into something, or I can do what to this day was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life and burn the bridge and be like, "We're either going to sink or swim, but I'm going to bet on myself. And I quit that teaching job and went in on all on Mindstrong with zero safety net. I guess the safety net is I could always go back to teaching, and that's while people are like, "Are you sure you should be doing this? Etc. Etc. And it was number one, trusting my gut that the vision of Mindstrong was not in person training. It was this much bigger reach, and the other lesson in there, which this is still this is still lesson one. I haven't gotten a lesson two yet, but the the sub sub lesson of lesson one is this sounds so cheesy, but betting on yourself, right? The reason that even though to this day it was the scariest decision I ever made, the conversations in my head were like, okay, I know myself, so if I do this and it flops miserably, I'm not
Speaker 1 28:27
And when we can say that's interesting, I thought X was going to happen, and X did not happen. Y happened by a lot. What data can I gather? Was there anything that went well? Was there anything that I can learn from this so I can tweak, adjust, and do better the next time? Right, you will not build a successful business, or I would challenge anywhere in life if every time something doesn't go according to plan, it's I have failed, as opposed to what data can I gather and how can I build from here, and that is a lesson that having a business will teach you every single day of of the week. Those are my two lessons.
Speaker 2 29:09
Yeah,
Speaker 1 29:09
I mean those are two of like 1000, but those are the big two.
Speaker 2 29:13
Yeah, and I think like as you were talking about it, just something that I've learned from you because I wasn't sure if you were going to say this, of like just this sort of capacity to stay curious and lean into growth, as we say at Mindstrong in our DNA, but that's something that I've learned from you and applies to so many things. Because even if something's working in that moment, like for example, like doing your company in the midst of COVID, how perfect! So many people are online and so forth. But then COVID ended, and how did that shape the landscape? So then, being able to look at it with curiosity instead of judgment, and being like, "What? What's the next step? What do we do now? And it's something that happens, you know, in the coaching realm. Well, because you may be finding something that's working for you right now. This is great, love this. Okay, but let's stay curious, right? Because things are never the same. Things are constantly changing, and maybe one day you don't want to eat cottage chews anymore, right? So let's figure out something else. Stay curious. I'm like always try something new each week. Like there's a new thing, or try it in a new way, so that you don't get stagnant. Because just by being, you you can't ever get to that point where like this works. I'm just gonna do this forever, because it's not it doesn't work, right? Things are constantly changing.
Speaker 1 30:37
Yeah, I think that power of curiosity goes hand in hand with the conversation around failure, right? It's like interesting. I thought this was going to happen. This happened. What can I learn from this? What what data can I gather? What what was the expectation, and what impacted the result? Right. That power of curiosity. I mean, this is true of everything. Relationships. Like you can go like this with your partner all day long. You're not going to win. But when we can take a breath and say, "That's interesting. What that is not at all how I intended that to come out, and I hear you, it did. Can you tell me more about that? Right? Tell me more about that. One of the most powerful statements on the face of the earth, and that's leaning into the power of curiosity versus square peg round hole in this should have worked. That's not what I meant. Whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2 31:24
Yeah. Well, what's something that we may not know about you that people in your daily life get to see?
Speaker 1 31:34
Diana, I just saw Deanna go. Ooh, interesting. I I'm a very clumsy person, and I think that that's I think that's unexpected because I am an athletic person, but I think that's a theme of people who hang out with me is like I am incapable of eating a meal without spilling on myself. Getting water everywhere. Water everywhere. Like I legit, if I'm wearing a white shirt, will tuck a bib in because it's not a question of if, it's how quickly. Our dog Frankie is like this big floppy muppet. She and I are soulmates. Like we just we just trip over our own feet sometimes. We run into things. I could not tell you why Swomo loves the story. We were in Costa Rica last year around the holiday time, and we went on this like athletic adventure. It was like a three day, a three event day where you just went from like thing to thing, and I almost died in all three things. Just like almost fell off a waterfall. It was just one thing after another, and she's like, "You know, everyone in this van is like, how is that girl that athletic and just cannot keep it together? So, gun to my head, if I had to pick what most people don't know, it's that I am very clumsy and incapable of eating like a normal, like a normal adult. I'm gonna say.
Speaker 2 33:00
Well, something I always ask people when I'm doing interviews is not that I do that all the time, but sometimes I do. Is tell me something that you wish you would have known.
Speaker 1 33:13
Ooh, how far back are we going? Like pre Mindstrong or anything,
Speaker 2 33:17
anything, just like anything that you wish that you would have known.
Speaker 1 33:21
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 33:22
I know that's why I ask it. Get such good answers. My answer
Speaker 1 33:26
is going to make a lot of sense to you, as my friend. That more than one truth can exist at the same time. I think growing up in such a black and white household, there were capital T truths, and then there were everything else. And when you live that black or white, a lot of life does not make a lot of sense, and it doesn't make you. You can still be an empathetic person, but it doesn't make you a very connected person. I would say that because I like psychology so much, I always understood how to hold space for people, but I didn't know how to emotionally connect when I was younger, and a lot of that was because if if whatever was happening or that person did not fit into this capital T truth box, I did not understand it. And when we can understand that, I can be so angry at you right now, and I love you so much, and I still want to spend time with you. Both of those things can be true, right? I can really wish that you did some-not you, Leila, but like that-that Jane Smith does some deeper healing work, so we can connect on a deeper level, and I can still fully love and respect who she is, right? Two things can be: I can understand your trauma and have all the empathy in the world, and it can also mean that I have boundaries where you're not allowed to get too close because that's not safe for me. Doesn't mean I love you less, but both of those things can be true, and. I remember when I was doing my own healing work, my parts work, my therapy in the years leading up. That was a really. It sounds so simple, but it was such an aha moment for me. Of like, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Two truths can exist at the same time. And now you know, as my friend, that's like my no. I always say, like,
Speaker 2 35:23
oh gosh, both of
Speaker 1 35:24
those can be true, right? That makes a lot of sense. Both of those can be true, and I think sometimes people need to just hear that because, especially as humans, we love our shoulds. We love to should on ourselves.
Speaker 2 35:35
Yeah,
Speaker 1 35:35
and sometimes just saying to our loved ones, like, yeah, that makes sense. Both of those can be true. It's like, oh, okay. It's okay. It's like signing our permission slip. It's okay for me to feel both of these things at once. I don't need to figure this out because two truths, multiple truths, can exist at the same time.
Speaker 2 35:54
Yeah, you will never hear Rachel say, "but. It's basically removed from her vocabulary. It's always an and and there's a dramatic pause. This other thing, that's a classic Rachel move. But I I will oh jeez, I just said but and and I will also say, we can hold you know in the coaching realm when we think about our relationship with food and nutrition and health, and we can all we can think about things that we have multiple beliefs on, right? And sometimes those things do feel like they conflict with each other because we're holding these two things, and maybe some of them aren't a truth. Maybe some of them aren't a fact, but maybe sometimes there are some conflicts there, right? Like I, you know, I want to spend time under to time drinking my coffee in the morning, and I want to work out, and that's the only time that I can do it. So I'm going to have to choose because I only have this one time slot of what that's going to be, or it could be I believe that food is nourishing and I need it to be able to do the things that I want to do in the day, and it often feels like I'm too full and I can't I don't want to eat anymore, right? So how do I get over that feeling of like I feel like I've had enough and I know that I haven't had enough. And so, how do I make those those two beliefs reconcile so that you can feel kind of good in that? Because it is hard to hold multiple truths, to hold multiple beliefs at once, right? We're complex people, but at the end of the day, we want it to be simple. We want it to be just this is it. This is what I'm, you know. And then I could just execute. And often it's really hard. And sometimes we have to spend time just sitting with that, pulling it out. These are all the facts, and that's where the coach can really help see. Like these are these are the things that that we can observe or notice. So then you can sort through that and feel like where is where is it that's most important? What is it that is the primary belief that I want
Speaker 1 38:14
Yeah, yeah, and I think this goes back to that conversation about the power of choice, right? It's like I want quiet, interrupted time in the uninterrupted time in the morning to have coffee. I also want to work out. Is there a should in there? Is there a must? Does there have to? Absolutely not. And let's go. Let's let's take 30 seconds to think about what's the outcome of option A. What's the outcome of option B? Doesn't mean one is right or wrong. Which one do I choose in this moment? Right. And very similar to the I know I need to eat I should eat more but I'm not hungry. The beauty of the human body and the human mind is that we're pleasure-seeking creatures. This is why we don't quadruple your food food intake overnight, right? It's those baby steps. It's those momentum. Our body wants dopamine, so in any of this, we step into the power of choice. We take a baby step, then we don't have to try so hard because our brain's like, oh, when I went to the gym yesterday, remember how good I felt? What if I do that again? What if I do that again? Until you get to a point where this isn't even a conversation, you just get up and go to the gym because your brain's done the work for you. It's myelinated, it's wired in the habit, but it's always, always, always multiple truths can exist. Power of choice, baby steps, momentum.
Speaker 2 39:26
Yeah, and I would also and doing that all day, and also adding on that neuroscience piece of understanding where such when you're making decisions like that, like what what your current state is in, your emotional state that you're in at that moment, and are you thinking of yourself in the present? You know, you talk about this in that present state. Are you imagining like your future self, how that decision is going to feel waking up tomorrow? When I look back on yesterday, how am I going to feel about these decisions that I made to kind of help? Remove you a little bit from sometimes sitting in that present state where you may not feel the most grounded in that moment because of these other things that are going on. Sometimes it can help to get that arm's length distance by thinking, "How am I going to feel that in the future? Or, "What would I say to myself if I was my friend and I was asking for advice? And I was like, "What should I do with this or this and this? And it's like, if I think about how I'm making my decisions and sort of removing understanding how that that can change depending on what what brain I'm operating is that that fear based brain to keep myself safe, or am I thinking about my long term goals and how it aligns with that?
Speaker 1 40:40
Yeah, that's such a great point. I I would venture to estimate that I probably make 98% of decisions according to future Rachel. It's very rare that it's like, what do I want right now? Right? It's only when I'm like walk past a donut shop. Then what do I want right now? I'm donut. The answer is always donut. But even then, like where I'm usually making decisions is, again, it's never a have to. It's never should. It's okay. Here are the two options on the table. The world is not going to end if I choose either one of these. I'll use the donut one because this is a real this is a real one, especially knowing how much I love them. The world's not going to end if I eat a donut. I'm not going to even ruin my goals because I know how to fit them into my macros, and 20 minutes from now, Rachel, right? Because it doesn't have to be 99-year-old Rachel. I'm gonna crash from the sugar and feel like garbage. I'm gonna be hungry again, and then I'm gonna go to the gym later and probably be vomiting in my mouth because I had a donut before my workout. I can do it. Like I will feel good for about 10 minutes. Do I want that? And most of the time, it's a no. Some days it's like you know what. Today's my rest day. I'm not going to the gym. There will be no mouth vomiting. Yes, I'm having the donut, and then I eat it, and I move on, and I accept the crash when it happens because I knew I was going into it. But I think that that making decisions as your future self, it doesn't mean we postpone happiness. I want to be clear about that. Like, I will never be a human who lives for retirement. I cannot wrap my brain around that kind of thinking because we could die tomorrow, and then what? Like, I am very much a plan for the future, but live for today person, and I find that making decisions for my future self usually also bonus and leads to the best, the healthiest decision for myself in the moment. It
Speaker 2 42:30
is definitely a skill, though. I was actually just talking to my 15-year-old about this because, you know, teenagers they have a really reduced capacity for abstract thinking-it's something that develops as people age. And I was telling him, I was like, and then some people never really develop that capacity. And he's like, really? And he's like, and what does that mean? This abstract thinking. And I was like, it's thinking about the future. It's thinking about things that aren't right in front of you. And the more that you can practice thinking in that future-oriented state, the more easily access that path is, so that it doesn't become so challenging in that moment to think about, you know, well, what, how is that going to impact me in 20 minutes, in a month, in a year, in 10 years, right? Because it is a skill, and it's also oh my gosh I can't stop doing this now and it's a skill and it is important to get to where we're going because at the end of the day you don't really know what that eating the donut not eating the donut on a daily or like monthly thing will do for you nobody's going to tell you you know you shaved like you gained an extra year and six months on your life expectancy, or you like you know avoided an early heart attack. Like nobody's ever going to tell you that, so you're making these decisions based on hypotheticals, which is a really challenging skill to do. So if you're finding that it's challenging in the moment, it's okay because it is, it is like, oh my gosh! It's like I have to kind of get out of my own direct, like looking at this in front of me. But the more that you do that, the the easier that it is to do that on a regular basis until you're like Rachel and thinking of future Rachel all the time. And I will say she does this all the time. Like she's like, what does future Rachel say? Even
Speaker 1 44:20
in social settings, it's weird hanging out with me. I will talk
Speaker 2 44:22
to future
Speaker 1 44:23
Rachel.
Speaker 2 44:24
Yes,
Speaker 1 44:25
but I think like everything we're talking about, it's it's baby steps and momentum because even on this topic, the snowball will roll down a hill.
Speaker 2 44:33
Yeah, because
Speaker 1 44:34
when you make decisions that way, and your brain that's always looking to keep us safe gets positive feedback of man. I'm really glad I made that decision. Thumbs up, past Rachel. Right, that's a dopamine release, and it becomes easier and easier until you get to a place where, like I said earlier, I literally use the rocking chair test probably 10 times a day, and a Slack message goes off. It's something I don't want to hear. Okay. When I'm 99, does this moment matter? Every once in a while, it's a yes. Like, yeah, this is a pivotal thing. Let's address it. 99.9% of the time, no. This is annoying right now. Let me pause. Let me breathe. Let me come back to it. I guarantee you, in 10 minutes, this is not that big a deal. And that can only happen the rocking chair test by making those little daily decisions, the power of choice, the snowball rolling down a hill. So, to Leila's point, yes, it's a weird way and an uncomfortable way to think when it's new, and like everything else in life, it gets easier and easier because neuroscience, because our brains are looking for that dopamine hit, and the more we give it that, the the faster that snowball goes.
Speaker 2 45:41
Yeah, I want to say one thing before we open up to question because you just reminded me it's like that other piece of that puzzle is that reflection piece, right? So it's not just thinking about what would future Rachel do, but then reflecting. Oh, I'm really glad I did that. Look how that set me up for success. One tangible thing that some of the members in my group are doing is one week we were really focused on what can I do right to take that baby step like that was our mantra for the week what can I do, and then the next week we did what did I do right so instead of looking at the to do list of what I have to do what did I do today because that rec that reflection piece of like, yep, I checked it off. So you can see all of the things that you're doing helps to reinforce that momentum of like this is how it's moving me forward. That's that dopamine hit that I get to reward that I'm moving in that direction. So just that could be a little thing that you guys could do as well instead of making a to do list. It's like what did I do
Speaker 1 46:41
a a did list? That makes me think a did list. When we talked about meal prep, that I mean, I've told you guys it sounds crazy, but I say it out loud. When I grab my little meal prep meals out of the fridge, I'd be like, "Good looking out, past Rachel. Right? That was my what did I do? Past Rachel meal prepped for future Rachel. I'm gonna thank her out loud because I promise you, next Sunday I'm not going to win a meal prep again. But that little dopamine release, I did that. I accomplished that. Our brains love a checklist. It's it's all it's all dopamine. All right, should we do something? So we have
Speaker 2 47:13
a couple questions in the chat. Oh, are you going to read them? One is yes, I'm doing a full interview back today. Okay. So people want to know what the bracelet's called and the red light sauna that you have.
Speaker 1 47:26
Okay, good questions. The bracelet, and let me be clear, I'm not affiliated with either of these companies. But if it catches on, I will be. I will get us a discount code. The company for the bracelet is called High Strips. H I hyphen strips, confusing because they mostly make those like nose breathing strips, but for some reason they sold this bracelet. I don't know. I went down a, I got an Instagram targeted ad not for them. Went down a rabbit hole of who's the best bracelet. I was looking for one that doesn't have like all the chemicals that the those wristbands tend to have, and wound wound up on them, I love it so far. It lets you set up to three different alarms. So, like, I like a five minute snooze because I need a little heads up. It's coming, so you can set up to three. The sauna, I think it's called Life Pro, L I F E P R O. I'd have to double check that. I think it's called Life Pro. If Stephanie's on, I can't see if Stephanie's on, but she also bought one after yes, Life Pro. Thank you, Stephanie. A
Speaker 2 48:29
little bit accidentally, but she's happy.
Speaker 1 48:31
She she accidentally bought one after trying ours. She was looking into it and hit buy, and it was. I was
Speaker 2 48:36
just looking into it, and then the next thing I know, it was purchased. So I guess I'm keeping it, and she loves
Speaker 1 48:41
it. They make a one person or a two person. We have the two person, but it's still not. You can't like lay down in it, unfortunately. But it's fantastic. It has not impacted our electricity bill. It gets fairly hot. It takes a while to heat up, but it gets fairly hot, and it is. You can have them in apartments because it's it's infrared. We love this thing. Swoman and I both use it pretty much every day.
Speaker 2 49:05
Stephanie's here. She confirms it's Life Pro. So
Speaker 1 49:07
Life Pro. Thank you, Stephanie.
Speaker 2 49:09
We have another question about the the food prep service that you're using.
Speaker 3 49:14
Yes, you could
Speaker 2 49:15
talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 49:16
So I I mentioned them on the meal prep episode, and they were episode lunch and learn. We turn that one into a podcast, and my brain says episode. I had just started using them. Now I've ordered from them like four times, so I am going to talk to them about getting a discount code. The company I've been using is called Mega Fit Meals, M-E-G-A-F-I-T Meals. Not affiliated with them yet, but trying to be, the thing I love about them is it's for me it was hard to find a meal prep service that lets you choose your own meals. So I don't want their weekly mac menu because I can't control the macros on that. So with them you can customize your own meals. So it's like I want four ounces of chicken and I want. Half a cup of jasmine rice, and I want this kind of veggie. You can build your own, and that's what I look for in meal prep. The only thing I don't love about them is they do not have vegan or vegetarian options, which I'm hoping they change. That's a huge miss because Swomo is vegan. But if you do eat, they have seafood. So if you're pescetarian, it works. They have bison, they have beef and they have chicken, and then they have a couple different kinds of fish. So I am loving them so far. They taste way better than I expected them to, to be honest. So yeah, my my game plan is to see if we can get a discount code because I've been loving them.
Speaker 2 50:34
Okay, here's a here's a deeper question. So here we go. I
Speaker 1 50:38
got lots of recommendations. We can keep going down this
Speaker 2 50:40
path. So how do you stop being hard on yourself? Like I dang, I didn't get up at five a.m. I failed. Again, back to black and white thinking. And the other question is on the workouts. How do I do my own workout? And trying to incorporate your amazing workouts. How important is it to rotate every week the exercises, or is it like do crunches, bicycles, like week one exercises, and just rotate those every week?
Speaker 1 51:09
Okay, let me do the workout one first because that's a that's a quicker hit, and then we'll go to the other one. For workouts, the most important thing in this stage of life is that we are practicing what's called progressive overload, pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do. If you are new to working out, I literally do not care what exercises you do. Back in the day when I was one-to-one coaching, I would literally go through the workouts with my members and be like, "Point to which one looks fun. Like you don't have to know what body part it works. We don't have to think about goals. Find an exercise that looks fun, because dopamine, right? As long as we are pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do, you are going to be doing an effective workout. And bonus, when you actually enjoy what you're doing, you're gonna want to do it again. So the ignite workouts, which by the way we are re-recording. Day two of recording is happening this Friday, so it's a big project, but it's happening. The ignite we're not changing the workouts; we're just updating the video quality. The ignite workouts are very intentionally designed to help you progress. They're designed in a way where you're going to hit each of the body parts. They're going to get more challenging as you get stronger. You do not have to follow them to a T. You could literally meet with your coach and be like, "Hey, I hate this exercise. Probably Bulgarian split squats. Everyone hates Bulgarian split squats. I don't want to do this one until I'm more advanced. Cool. Let's not do it. Let's get the snowball rolling down a hill. So, if you have workouts you love, do those. Maybe throw some ignite in. Maybe don't. If you're new to working out, just pick ones that look fun and and make progress there. Okay, I love this question. How do you stop being hard on yourself? If you were to ask me, what is the single of all the neuroscience that we teach, what is the single most impactful one that changed my
Speaker 1 54:59
If I were talking to my grandchild, would I berate them? Would I make them feel like garbage, or would I validate? Right, we're not here to suppress emotions. Yeah, I hear you. This feels like garbage right now. It makes a lot of sense to me why you're feeling sad, why you're feeling disappointed, why you're feeling embarrassed. And here's the and, not the but, because but suppresses, right? It invalidates what came before it. And let's dig a little deeper and see what there is to learn here. The first few times you do this, the voice in your head is going to be screaming at you, not saying to you, screaming at you, this is ridiculous. I don't talk to myself like this, and the answer is, that's the point. Because if you did, we wouldn't be doing the exercise. And what happens with enough time and consistency is, I remember to this day there was a day I woke up and something happened, and I was like, "Whose voice is up there? Like I was being nice to myself more than nice. I was being my best coach. I was dangling that carrot and validating my own feelings. And if there is one thing that changed the trajectory of my own life, it was learning how to train this to be my best coach instead of beating myself up. It takes time. It takes a lot of consistency. You will not want to do it in the moment because it feels so ridiculous. My thing is always put it on me. When you feel ridiculous, be like, "All right, I feel dumb, but Rachel says this works, so I'm just going to put it on her and try it out for a month. Like, use an excuse of why you're going to stick with it, but stick with it because your brain will rewire. It will transform your life.
Speaker 2 56:44
I think we're out of time, and that was an amazing question to end on.
Speaker 1 56:47
We'll leave it there. Maybe we'll do a part two down down the road.
Speaker 2 56:51
Yeah,
Speaker 1 56:52
cool, Leila. Thanks for being such a great interviewer. This was fun.
Speaker 2 56:57
Yeah, I'd love to come and pick your brain anytime.
Speaker 1 57:01
Trying to take my my pin off so we can all be on the screen. There we go. All right, that was wonderful. And I will tell you, by the way, it's fun having so my two best friends in the world, Leila and Stephanie Bourne, is another one of our coaches. So number one, as Leila mentioned, I was already every time we'd hang out, we'd like go to wine country for a girls' workout workout, girls' weekend. We were not working out at MindCon.
Speaker 2 57:23
Not workout. No,
Speaker 1 57:24
but I was already talking to them endlessly about Mindstrong, and now that they're here as head coaches, it just makes this so much better. Because yeah, we talk about life and non-work stuff, but we talk a lot about Mindstrong when we're away. And the thing I love, my point in sharing this is that one thing I love about the women on this team is that it's what you see is what you get, right? When you hang out with Leela in Wine Country, when you hang out with Stephanie, when you hang out with me, like we're the same people. We talk about the same things. We talk about neuroscience. We talk about talking to yourself like a kindergartner. We talk about and instead of but, and I truly believe that the the deepest friendships, the deepest connections, which is a lot of what we have here at Mindstrong, starts with that. That nobody is here trying to be a fake influencer with a gallon of makeup and putting on this presentation of a perfect life. It's like let's just all show up vulnerably. Let's just all talk about you know we've all been through some crap and we're learning and we're growing and we're getting better. And I truly, in my soul of souls, I think that's what makes this community such a beautiful place. Is that we connect because we show up authentically instead of trying to lean into perfectionism, which is gross and false anyway. No, all right, my friends. We will send out the replay tomorrow, and we will put this in your portal. So, if you want to hear us yap all over again, it'll it'll be there for you. Thank you, Leila. Thanks, everyone, for joining, and have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday. We'll see next. We'll see you next time. For more information on Mind Strong Fitness or to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team, visit www.mindstrongfitness.com.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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